Maths teacher shortage adding up to more pain in the classroom

A leader in training teachers in the South West says the sector is struggling with a reduced number of mathematics teachers. She believes the issue goes all the way back to how many students are taking the subject in school. The issue came to a head when Bunbury Senior High School, a school that topped the region in the recent NAPLAN results, advertised a new position for a maths teacher but the process took longer than expected due to a lack of applicants. Tyril Houghton, Edith Cowan University’s School of Education university supervisor and a secondary maths tutor based in Bunbury, said the lack of teachers was hurting both teachers and students in the classroom. “There is a large contingent across the State of people who are working in what we call ‘out of field,’ they may have had their initial degree in something else and now they are teaching mathematics because somebody has to do it,” she said. “That can have negative impact for both the person themselves and for the students that they’re teaching.” She said one of the roots of the issue was a drop in students taking maths through senior school. Bunbury SHS had only one student enrolled into specialist mathematics last year with the sole student having to take the course through the School of Isolated and Distance Education program. “We don’t have enough people coming up through the universities at the moment doing the pure mathematics degrees and teaching,” she said. “Generally because we’re not having enough students doing it.” Ms Houghton suggested previous methods should be looked at for attracting teachers, but conceded this was a plan unlikely to happen. “When I trained many moons ago we actually got paid in training, we had scholarships, we had no HECS debt ... but back then if you trained for three years, you had to give three years to the department.” “You were paid the whole time and they had security of knowing that the workforce was there. “I believe that really and truly would make a big difference.” Both Curtin University and Edith Cowan University announced recently aspiring teachers who already had a degree would now be able to take a one-year diploma in teaching to speed up the process. Ms Houghton said she was hopeful the ease would bring more teachers dedicated to their subjects into classrooms. “It’ll be interesting to see the uptake of that but it’s definitely for those people who no longer want to be the fly-in, fly-out, doing engineering or whatever and if there is anybody out there who has been an engineer and got the science and maths background.” Bunbury Senior High School principal Mike Sinagra said he was pleased to see the new diploma course. “We are very excited by this new initiative from ECU Bunbury Campus to help address teacher supply in the regions,” he said. “It is fabulous to see the possibilities for regional students to stay in the region and pursue a passion for teaching. “It is also a great attraction for city graduates to study on the Bunbury campus and be available for pre-service and post-graduation positions in the South West.”